DECEMBER 10TH. - FISHGUARD, AND ST. DAVID’S, PEMBROKESHIRE. At 4.46 in the afternoon a message was received from the coastguard that a vessel had sent up red flares about seven miles west of Strumble Head. A moderate north-west wind was blowing, with a rough sea. At six o’clock the motor life-boat White Star was launched, and found the S.S. Dan Beard, of New Orleans, wrecked and surrounded by oil and wreckage. There was no one on board.

When the life-boat had made certain of this she searched for survivors, but found nothing except a ship’s life-buoy with a light.

One of the life-boat’s crew, T. M. Neal, was taken seriously ill, so the life-boat returned to her station, and he was landed and taken home by a police car. He was paralysed, and shortly afterwards he died. The lifeboat informed the coastguard of her fruitless search, and the naval authorities asked her to launch again and continue it. This she did, but she found neither the boats nor men and returned to her station at ten o’clock next morning.

At 7.20 on the evening of the 10th the coastguard asked the St. David’s life-boat to search off Strumble Head itself, and at 8.20 the motor life-boat Civil Service No. 6 was launched. As she came near the Head she found wreckage, oil on the water and then a raft with twelve men. Their clothing was saturated with oil and their hands very greasy, and it was very difficult to get them into the life-boat, so one of her crew, J. Jenkins, got on to the raft to steady it alongside the life-boat. The life-boat then made for Fishguard, but before she arrived there one of the rescued men died. She put out again and continued her search until daybreak, but found nothing, and returned to her station at 10.45 next morning. She had been slightly damaged through striking wreckage and the raft, and the hands, arms and faces of the lifeboat crew were blackened with oil. On their return they were treated with lotion as a precaution against dermatitis. The flag officer-in-charge of the naval base at Milford Haven expressed his appreciation of the life-boats’ help. - Rewards, Fishguard £33 6s. ; St. David’s, £31 12s. 6d. The Institution also paid the funeral expenses of the Fishguard life-boatman, T. M. Neal, who had died..